Abstract
Some recent accounts of constitutive relevance have identified mechanism components with entities that are causal intermediaries between the input and output of a mechanism. I argue that on such accounts there is no distinctive inter-level form of mechanistic explanation and that this highlights an absence in the literature of a compelling argument that there are such explanations. Nevertheless, the entities that these accounts call ‘components’ do play an explanatory role. Studying causal intermediaries linking variables Xand Y provides knowledge of the counterfactual conditions under which X will continue to bring about Y. This explanatory role does not depend on whether intermediate variables count as components. The question of whether there are distinctively mechanistic explanations remains open.
Highlights
In discovering the double-helical structure of DNA, Watson and Crick advanced our understanding of how traits are inherited across generations
The concept of constitution plays a key role in recent accounts of mechanistic explanation
I began this section with the claim that if the mechanistic literature has offered a distinctive form of explanation, it is an inter-level form of explanation, which we should be able to find by considering accounts of constitutive relevance
Summary
In discovering the double-helical structure of DNA, Watson and Crick advanced our understanding of how traits are inherited across generations. One hesitates to claim that DNA molecules cause heredity. Rather, these molecules are part of the process by which traits are passed on. Heredity is constituted by the replication and transmission of DNA across generations. The concept of constitution plays a key role in recent accounts of mechanistic explanation.
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